After a long while, Kamila said. “Get up.”
I hope she thinks I’m dead, Alyssa thought. Maybe then Kamila will run away and leave me here.
Kamila didn’t give up that easy. But either did Alyssa, or her dad. Kamila was stubborn, but so were they. Bullies can be beat, eventually. Even ones like Kamila.
“I said GET UP.”
Alyssa sat upright on the floor, her gaze avoiding Kamila’s. She could see Kamila’s back in the mirror, and Kamila shook her head disapprovingly. “Stupid girl.”
Kamila started as if to say something else, but she had picked up an ashtray off of the vanity and paused as something caught her attention. Kamila held up a business card, twisting it between her fingers.
Alyssa put her head between her knees, covering her face. “God, please help me find a way back to my dad.”
“Shush you stupid girl.”
“And protect me from Kamila.”
Kamila let out a derisive snort. “Yes. Pray to your God. You will need his help where we are going.”
***
Kamila waited for the receptionist to transfer her call to Jones’s office. Marcus had found them. They had to leave, now. She would collect the extra money Jones had promised her and be in Grozny by tomorrow.
Kamila dug through her bag for a cigarette, found one and, the flame trembling in her hand, finally got it lit. She reached over and drew the curtains. A delicate halo escaped through the edges of the window. Illuminated smoke drifted, the combination of light and cloud revealing invisible currents. The sun and its foreign radiance could not penetrate the smoke, but wrapped itself around it, sealed it into a glowing mass, then moved on. You need to learn to let things go, her therapist had said. But that wasn’t who she was. She exhaled hard and studied the turbulent curling and twisting, imagined herself a god blowing down on a cowering multitude.
How long did it take to transfer a call?
She shouldn’t have hit Alyssa. But she had it coming. She knew the girl was lying, that she had talked to Marcus.
“This is Jones.”
“I need the rest of my money.”
“Who is this?”
“Kamila.”
There was a long pause. The line clicked.
“Hello?” Kamila slammed the phone down. “Bastard.”
She dialed and was transferred again. The phone rang through to his voicemail. Kamila clicked the receiver and dialed again. She lit another cigarette and started over.
The same perky woman answered the phone.
“I need to talk to Mr. Jones.”
“Let me transfer you…”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to talk now. It’s an emergency. About his children. In America.”
“May I ask who is calling?”
“This is an emergency. Do you get that? Tell him I am calling about his children.”
There was silence for a minute or two. She finished the cigarette.
“This is Jones. What’s the matter?”
“I’ll tell you what. Don’t you hang up on me.”
“Kamila?”
“Good.”
“What the hell are you doing talking about my kids?”
“Do I have your attention now?”
“What do you know about—”
“Don’t worry, Mister Jones. I don’t have anything to do with your kids—yet. I am calling because of a favor.” He didn’t respond, so she continued. She sensed that it was her, not Jones, in control. But that wouldn’t last, so she would have to be careful. “I suggest you don’t hang up again.”
“If I do?”
“You think I don’t keep evidence of the little favors I did for you.”
“You got your payment.”
“You promised more.”
“Forget it.”
“I think the Russians would love to know what American Embassy staff is doing with a Chechen, not to mention that he is running an illegal escort agency.”
“You can’t prove anything.”
“Because men never leave evidence, is that right?”
She could hear him breathing as he thought about what to say next.
“What do I need to do to get rid of you? For good.”
“Two thousand.”
Jones scoffed, but Kamila felt his fear seeping through the receiver.
“Okay,” she said, “Now I’ll hang up and go to my newspaper friends. They pay better than that anyway.”
“I’ll send someone over with the money.”
“You don’t want to come yourself? I could get a babysitter.”
“I could do better for cheaper.”
“Screw you,” Kamila said. “It better be quick or the price goes up, little man.”
She hung up. Things might work out after all.
Alyssa was laying on the bed in a fetal position. Her accusatory sniffles pricked the silence.
“You want to play cards or something?” Kamila asked.
“No.”
“Fine, have it your way.”
Chapter 21
It just so happened that Dmitry Alexandrov, Jen’s reporter friend, was out of town working on a story. He’d be available in two days. Two days was too long, but there wasn’t anything to do about it. In the meantime, they put up posters of Alyssa and waited. During the day, they walked and looked. A few callers responded to the poster. One was obviously a reporter, wanting to know “the story.” Two more wanted to know how much the reward was before giving any information, obviously fakes.
There were risks involved in asking Jen’s friend for help. The Russian government closely monitored the Novaya Gazeta newspaper, thanks to the paper's assault on Putin’s regime and his ever-increasing power grabs. The last thing Marcus needed was to get mixed up in Russian politics. Risks or not, he wanted one thing, to find Alyssa and get back to the United States. As much as Marcus knew about Russia, Kamila knew more. If she made it to Chechnya, they might never find her. And Jen had said that this reporter knew more about Chechnya than the average Russian.
When the two days had passed, they met the reporter at the hotel restaurant.
“We have reservations for—”
“Yes,” he interrupted, “The rest of your party is already here. Follow me.”
Stormy looked at Marcus with raised eyebrows.
The host led them to a table tucked into a corner of the room. The restaurant, one of two currently operating in the hotel, had a high ceiling held up by pink marble columns resting on a powder blue carpet, its baroque patterns trying to keep up with the rest of the room.
The reporter rose from his seat. He was taller than Marcus, but thinner. Black hair slicked back and a pair of glasses that hung off his nose, gave the impression of an erudite revolutionary. He gave Marcus a hard handshake that seemed incongruent with his soft exterior. Dmitry turned and bowed before Stormy, then pulled her chair out for her.
“I took the trouble to have them move us away from the middle of the room,” Dmitry said. His English was good, the Russian influence adding flavor to each word. “It’s smaller, but more private. Will you have anything?” He glanced at the whiskey tumbler on the table.
“Coffee,” Marcus said to the waiter that had followed them to the table.
“I’ll have the same,” Stormy replied.
Marcus explained their situation, starting with Kamila’s history, then how she had kidnapped Alyssa, up until the phone call two days earlier.
When Marcus finished, Dmitry pulled out a cigar and rolled it between his fingers. “You don’t mind?” From another pocket he took out a knife carefully cutting off the end of the cigar before lighting it. “Cuban,” he said. “Isn’t it amazing that communism can create something so beautiful as a Cuban cigar?” When neither of them responded, he smiled. “Not to worry, my drink is one-hundred percent capitalist. Jack Daniels, as a matter of fact. I like t
o think of myself as able to appreciate both sides of just about any argument.”
They weren’t here to talk about Dmitry’s taste in liquor. They were here to find Alyssa. “Can you help us or not?”
“I know Russia of course but more to the point, I know Chechnya. And, of course, some people at your government trust me. Which is bad for me.”
“Why?” Stormy asked.
“The new Russia is no less tolerant of journalistic truth than the old Russia. We seem to have totalitarianism in our blood.” He lifted up the whiskey and gave a mock toast. He swallowed hard and continued. “Any journalist that does not agree with Putin, and puts those disagreements in writing, he will end up, what’s that you say, six feet under?”
For the next several minutes, Dmitry went on about the difficulties of Russian journalism. When he was done, Dmitry looked up at them as if he were talking to himself, suddenly interrupted by two onlookers. “Sorry, we were supposed to be talking about how I could help you.”
“Yes,” Marcus said in a tenor that dumped his annoyance right down on the table in front of Dmitry, where he couldn’t avoid it any longer. “So will you help or not?”
Dmitry sat back in his chair. “I will need compensation, you will understand. And I will have to convince my editor that I have a reason to off to Chechnya…I’ll make up a story.”
“Chechnya?” Marcus repeated the word.
“You want to find your daughter don’t you?”
“Yes but she’s in Moscow.”
“That is why I can help you, Mr. Shelton. I’ve been doing some calling around since we talked two days ago. Your sister-in-law was working—”
“You found her? Where?”
“Unfortunately she is no longer with the agency.”
“What kind of agency?”
“Please, I will finish if you let me. She was working with an escort agency.”
“You mean she’s a prostitute?” Stormy asked.
“Well that depends on the agency, I suppose,” Dmitry said. “I don’t judge.”
An escort? Prostitution? Kamila wasn’t like that, wasn’t the sort of person that would…sell herself. And when she was out with her customers, where was Alyssa? A cold rage burned in the pit of his stomach.
“How did you find all of this out?” Stormy asked.
“I contacted some of my American ex-patriot friends here in town. One of them operates an escort service. Turns out Kamila had been working with a rival agency for some days. Told people she recently returned to Russia with her daughter.”
“We need to get to her. Now.”
“That is going to be difficult.”
“What does that mean?”
“She quit. It is likely that she was planning on leaving Moscow soon.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“Sir, had you called me earlier—”
“We know,” Stormy said, attempting to quiet the journalist.
Dmitry pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to Marcus.
“This is where she was staying.” He raised his hands before Marcus could protest. “I learned this just before coming here.”
Marcus replied quickly, “Then this is good news. Maybe they are still there. Maybe there’s a clue.”
“I can’t say. She may still be at the hotel.”
“Then let’s go,” Marcus said.
“Wait.” Dmitry lowered his voice. “I will never admit that I have told you any of this.”
“Okay.”
“This has something to do with the American Embassy.” He paused, his eyes shifting between Marcus and Stormy. “Do you understand?”
“If the Embassy knew anything about this, they would have told me.”
“Not just any Embassy staff. This has something to do with Mr. Jones. He is planning on getting rid of her, so maybe it’s a good thing she’s gone.”
“Jones is after Kamila?”
“Yes. She must have something he wants.”
“But Jones acted like he hadn’t heard from Kamila,” Stormy said.
Jones disliked Marcus, that hadn’t changed, but this wasn’t inter-office politics. Alyssa’s safety was at stake. Was he really capable of risking her safety, and for what? What was the connection between Jones and Kamila? If Marcus found out that Jones was somehow involved in Alyssa’s disappearance, he’d get more than a black eye this time. But right now, they had a chance to find Alyssa. They still might be at the motel. So far, the Dmitry fellow had been useful, if not a little eccentric. Marcus could deal with the man’s oddities, for now, as long as he was telling the truth about what he knew.
Marcus stood. “Take us to her motel. Now.”
Chapter 22
It took less than twenty minutes to reach the motel. Marcus paid the cabbie and they crossed the road, sloshing through puddles and potholes.
The motel was three floors of brick and glass and had tattered gutters that looked as though they hadn’t worked in years. Water streamed off the roof onto the sidewalk. The front of the building was tagged with Russian graffiti, the only lingual exception the name Eminem in bright red spray paint on the front door. The Russians weren’t only importing capitalism, but an entire culture.
“Moscow’s finest,” Dmitry said, looking up at the building.
Kamila had left America with Alyssa, and this is where she’d kept her all this time? All she had to do was tell Marcus she’d needed help, ask for money and he would have given it to her, if only she’d let him know where she was. Marcus wanted Kamila gone, but as long as Alyssa was with her, they had to eat, stay somewhere safe. The police were the ones who had cancelled the credit card, Kamila’s only consistent source of money. Another misstep on their part. But if Alyssa was here now, it was all going to be over. He’d take her back home and let the Russians deal with Kamila. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, but hope was the only thing keeping him sane right now.
The main door had a security code box.
“Well I guess that’s that. We don’t know the code,” Dmitry said.
Marcus pulled on the door and it opened easily. He glanced at Dmitry. “Sometimes it pays to try.”
Inside, there was an empty reception desk. A door behind the counter that led to another room where a television anchor was droning through the latest news script. They climbed the stairs to the third floor. The building was as cool as outside, and only a little less damp.
They reached the third floor and found the number, fourth room on the left, facing the main road. Dmitry had said he thought Kamila and Alyssa had already left Moscow. But what if he was wrong?
The door was ajar by an inch or two. Marcus put his hands on the handle and paused. There were voices. Could Alyssa still be there? No, it was a man, speaking English.
“Marcus,” Stormy whispered in a warning.
He pushed on the door slightly to better hear what they were saying. The door was light and moved farther than he expected. The talking stopped. Marcus took a step back but the door swooshed away from him and a man took hold of Marcus’s collar and yanked him into the room. A second man grabbed Dmitry.
“Stormy, get out of here,” Marcus shouted. She stared past him, and when he followed her eyes, he could see one of the men had a gun pointed at her.
“You, inside too, ma’am.”
One of the men closed the door. The other motioned for Marcus, Dmitry, and Stormy to line up against the wall.
It was a small room with two beds, a little table, and one chair. The curtains were closed, leaving the room in darkness. The room smelled of smoke.
“I knew this was a bad idea,” Dmitry said out of the corner of his mouth.
“Quiet,” one of the men said. He had his pistol pointed at them.
Marcus could see now that the two men were dressed like a pair of attorneys prepared to make opening arguments. What were they doing in Kamila’s motel room?
That’s when Marcus noticed a third man on the floor. Not a man, a body stuck between the two beds.
Had Kamila killed Jones? Marcus leaned forward to get a better look. The man was dressed like the other two. There was a knife sticking out of his neck. Blood pooled around his body. It wasn’t Jones.
“Who did this?” Marcus said.
“I was going to ask you,” the man said.
“I’m here looking for my daughter.”
“Did you find her?”
“Why the hell would I be standing here if I had found my daughter?”
“I’ll tell you what. You and your friends come along with us and we can talk about this in…better conditions.” He looked down at the body.
“We aren’t going anywhere until I find out what happened to my daughter.”
“You can look for your daughter all you want, once it’s clear to me, and my superiors, that you aren’t connected to the murder of Embassy staff.”
“I used to be Embassy staff you idiot.”
“No need for a history lesson, Mr. Shelton. I know all about you. Including a pattern of impulsive behavior involving your family. Come on now.” He reached for Marcus’s arm.
Marcus pulled back and pushed past the man. Arms crossed, the mammoth guarding the door didn’t budge.
“Does this have something to do with Kamila and Jones?”
The two men looked at each other. It did.
“Excuse me,” Marcus said, reaching around for the door handle. The next thing he felt was a sharp, wet pain on his skull. He opened his eyes, the giant staring down at him stupidly. The man reached down and smothered Marcus with a cloth. A sickening, sweet odor filled his lungs and a dark tunnel swallowed the room.
Chapter 23
Kamila was home again, a place she both longed for and despised.
But this wasn’t the Grozny she remembered.
The skyline, with its newly erected, lanky skyscrapers looked more like Seattle than Chechnya. She’d read about these changes. It seemed the Russians had convinced the people, even the Chechens who had lost family, that they could just whitewash the ruins, pretend that the massacres had never happened.
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